Oxblog asks "Why Don't Hot Chicks Blog?"

[randomness]

(Actually, Crooked Timber poses the question and Oxblog offers some hypotheses, but Oxblog's title was catchier.)

My immediate thoughts were a) there are plenty of them on LJ, but of course b) LJ doesn't count. Why LJ doesn't count when bloggers discuss blogs, and why there are plenty of women here strike me as interesting questions.
There are a lot of people who don't really consider LJ a blog. Certainly LJ has the reputation for being an insular place where people talk mainly to and about their friends on subjects that are only of interest to themselves.
Personally, I don't actually mind the reputation, because by and large--aside from the food and lodging listings--that's why I blog.
LJ's focus on people you actually know may be more attractive to people who care more about social interaction. My gut feeling is that this tends--for cultural reasons, perhaps--to attract more women.

To be fair, Crooked Timber was originally talking about academic blogs. Oxblog theorizes that women may not be so eager to join the cut and thrust of online argument. It might be, though, that we social people have other things to talk about.

Comments

[noire.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Crooked Timber was originally talking about academic blogs. Oxblog theorizes that women may not be so eager to join the cut and thrust of online argument. It might be, though, that we social people have other things to talk about.

Actually, I find this remark somewhat insulting, as if women like me and the women I know cannot (and, more to the point, will not) hold their own in the cut and thrust of online argument. Especially academic argument.

I don't qualify as a hot chick, so perhaps this is rather not to the point. But as a female academic who has competed fairly successfully head-to-head with men all her life in male dominated fields, I will say there is nothing about participating on line that is particularly different. Only--it's usually rather boring IMO.

Most bloggers rant. Whether or not they agree with me, I find very little considered inspection of topics and lots of hot air, often blowing noise about subjects on which the bloggers are not particularly more conversant than I am. I really don't care to spew myself, and have little interest in reading such. Ranting I find to be a fairly testosterone-intense activity, and I generally find being ranted at just plain boring.

If I want a thoughtful exchange of considered ideas I am far more likely to turn to people who I trust to think about a subject and discuss it in some depth rather than go off on an ungrounded position. I find that I have, in fact, had a number of such conversations here on LJ, though that is not why I'm here.

I like LJ not because I cannot hold my own in intellectual exchange, but because it is one of the ties of the tribe to which I belong. I don't really see it or experience it as blogging at all.

And, btw, I love reading your food and travel reports.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Actually, I find this remark somewhat insulting, as if women like me and the women I know cannot (and, more to the point, will not) hold their own in the cut and thrust of online argument.

I want to be clear here--particularly if I've given offense--that I don't agree with either Crooked Timber or Oxblog on that point.

it's usually rather boring IMO.

As I said, I feel like I have other things to discuss. :)

And, btw, I love reading your food and travel reports.

Thanks! :)

[noire.livejournal.com]

I want to be clear here--particularly if I've given offense--that I don't agree with either Crooked Timber or Oxblog on that point.

Oh, it never even occurred to me that you'd agree with such a point! Always more than clear that this was NOT you.

You know, though, this brings up yet another reason why I, at least, prefer most of my intellectual stimulation in person. It's way too easy to mistake things and give or take offense in this medium. Frankly, I think that a lot of the bloggers (at least a number of those I've read) seem to think that's an advantage, not a drawback...

[mentalapse.livejournal.com]

Very true. While I'd generally rather engage in true discussion, posting online seems to have two occassionally useful features. First, no one can cut you off and tell you to shut up. You get a chance to start and complete your thought. Then there's the second feature which you've touched on--sometimes there's a value to inflammatory speech (vague or otherwise).

[coraline]

I don't qualify as a hot chick

would it be terribly insulting if i wanted to disagree on this point?
(and i'm not the only one...)

(not sure if you were objecting to the "chick" part, which is a piece of nomenclature i'm not attached to, or the "hot" part, which might also be objectionable, but which i personally think is true :)

[noire.livejournal.com]

*smile* Thank you--for what you mean. I am quite flattered.

Though my image of what people generally mean when they say "hot chick" is rather as unflattering as my thoughts about the kind of men who use this term on the net. To my mind, the kind of men who are looking for/complaining about the absense of/ "hot chicks" on the net are generally unkempt with no social skills who think that supermodels should fall at their feet and worship silently at the overwhelming fount of their brilliance. And the definition of "hot chicks" are the kind of women who look like swimsuit models and show their superior intelligence by agreeing (mostly silently, though raptly) with the male in question.

I am not that. Never have been, not even when I was twenty and did have a swimsuit model body.